Palm Beach, 24th of January, 2015

Today was the great day of the main event of the 24th edition of the annual Cavallino Classic in Palm Beach. Brought to life over 2 decades ago the traditional concours at the Breakers is without doubt on of the early highlights in the classic car calendar and in particular for the fans of the cars with the prancing horse. Entrants and visitors from all over the world travel to Florida in the middle of January to crown the numerous class and special awards for the cars dating from the early 1950s to the latest Supercars.

Early in the morning, well before the sun was out (although the sun was not really out today) several cars were lined up in the driveway of the grand hotel to get on the field early, just to be on their spot in case the predicted rain might set in. As several of the racing sports car did not have an own cover or hood the owners and caretakers of the high valued cars did not want to manoeuvre in wet conditions but with a constant breeze from the sea the intended rain was long in coming so everything was easily set up in time.

Traditionally the concours is divided in three parts, the upper lawn with the main display of the most valuable cars, the middle lawn with a special featured class and the lower lawn with the cars from the 8-cylinder era and modern V12. Main attraction this year was the class of Ferrari 375 MM and America with a line-up of no less than five 375 MM PF Spyder (with a sixth in the Classiche tent), two special bodied versions of the MM including the Pebble Beach winning 0402AM and the PF Berlinetta 0290AM and finally two 375 America including the Agnelli-car 0355AL.

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Together with the 4 litre 412MI and no less than 3 250 TR this might have been the sportiest of all displays in recent years with additionally GT Berlinettas either in LWB and SWB configuration including the recently restored Norinder-GTO 3445GT and a rare Interim version (1519GT).

On the middle lawn the 250 Europa followed last year’s feature of the 50th anniversary of the 275 GTB with a great selection both of the PF Berlinetta in different colours but also the rare Vignale bodied examples of 0313EU and 0359GT, the small coupe once owned by princess de Rethy of Belgium. Although this car was already entered two years ago alongside the 375 Plus of her husband King Leopold the car was still one of the visitors and judges favourite and was finally awarded Best of Show in the GT Category, obviously to the surprise of its owner who was not at the award dinner to collect his trophy in person.

The Best in Show in the Competition category was even more a surprise both to the entrants but especially for the Austrian owner who never had this trophy in calculation. In between all the restored 375 MM, 250 GTO and 250 TR the tiny 166/206 P Dino with wonderful period race history including several Targa Florio entries and a lot of patina from the glory race days took the laurels after being announced into the silence of an agog crowd. After being used by its former owner in vintage racing the Dino finally entered the concours circus under its current owner Andreas Mohringer with a BoS at the German Bensberg Classic Concours and a Class win at the Villa d´Este but the Best of Show trophy at the most important Ferrari concours certainly adds very much to the cars history. It also displays the change in the concours scene as a car does not have to be necessarily restored to perfection to be awarded although the quality of car seemed to be better than ever as the organizers ran out of platinum award trophies at the end of the evening as more than ever where awarded with the highest point under the judging regulations.

Certainly this was one of the best line-ups ever but unfortunately the weather did not match with that as the atmosphere was rather gloomy in the morning and it seemed that a lot of visitors waited for the predicted shower to join in after the rain in the late morning.

Tomorrow will see the last day of this year’s Cavallino Classic with the multi-marque concours at the Mar-a-Lago with a small focus on Bugatti along the Ferrari, hopefully in better weather than today.

Cars on the upper lawn:
1964 Ferrari 275 GTB Competizione s/n 06701
1965 Ferrari 275 GTB Competizione s/n 6885
1953 Ferrari 375 MM PF Spyder s/n 0382AM
1953 Ferrari 375 MM PF Spyder s/n 0372AM
1954 Ferrari 375 MM PF Spyder s/n 0362AM
1954 Ferrari 375 MM PF Spyder s/n 0362/0374AM
1953 Ferrari 375 MM PF Spyder s/n 0364AM
1953 Ferrari 375 MM PF Spyder s/n 0370AM
1966 Ferrari 275 GTB/C s/n 09073
1965 Ferrari 166 P / 206 SP Dino s/n 0834
1958 Ferrari 412 MI s/n 0744
1958 Ferrari 250 TR s/n 0754TR
1958 Ferrari 250 TR s/n 0756TR
1958 Ferrari 250 TR s/n 0724TR
1962 Ferrari 250 GTO s/n 3445GT
1952 Ferrari 212 Inter Vignale s/n 0267EU
1951 Ferrari 212 Inter Vignale s/n 0163EL
1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB Berlinetta s/n 0881GT
1959 Ferrari 250 GT LWB Berlinetta s/n 1519GT
1959 Ferrari 250 GT LWB TDF Competizione s/n 1321GT
1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta s/n 2083GT
1962 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta s/n 3337GT
1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta s/n 2095GT
1963 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California s/n 4121GT
1953 Ferrari 375 America PF Coupe s/n 0293AL
1955 Ferrari 375 America PF Coupe s/n 0355AL
1955 Ferrari 375 MM PF Berlinetta s/n 0490AM
1954 Ferrari 375 MM PF Speciale s/n 0402AM

Report& images: Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de